The addictive nature of our sharing and witnessing, fuelled by smartphone growth has made it far easier to embed and broadcast content.Delshad Irani | ET Bureau | Updated: July 20, 2016, 14:06 IST

When you look at an arresting sight, could be anything — sunsets and reflections in the lake, cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels — generally the first thought is about sharing its picture on Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat. Because the experience is nothing without witnesses.

On Facebook-owned Instagram the over 95 million photos and videos uploaded every day, get over 4.2 billion likes daily. Our idle hours are spent viewing the world through geofilters and rose-coloured lenses, which are often someone else’s.

The age of selfies, though the selfie has been in existence since the 19th century, could not have happened if not for social media. Phone cameras are getting smarter and sharper. That’s why people’s personal photos can end up on massive Apple billboards. We make so many images of violently varying significance and imagination we’d rather not save them now, as Snapchat’s surge in popularity proves.

It’s far easier to make videos: there are even action cameras like GoPro, SJCam etc that specialise in capturing hard to capture moments. And easier still to broadcast in real-time with Facebook Live, Instagram videos and Twitter’s Periscope. Or even good old YouTube. Our need to document everything on film, in a manner of speaking, isn’t a digital era development.

But the addictive nature of our sharing and witnessing, fuelled by smartphone growth and ubiquitous social media that has made it far easier to embed and broadcast content, has raised some important practical and existential questions.

What to capture, watch, share and with whom? How much is too much or going too far? Because everyone from Grandma to the most violent terror groups is adding to the billions of photographs and videos uploaded to the network every day, accessible to anyone with a working internet connection.